Dopamine Detox for Musicians (and Everyone Else Too)

You're either a motivated individual or you're not. Right?

Wrong.

There are things you can do to manipulate your motivation level, and I'm going to show you how.

This will show my age, but I was a typical 90s kid. Despite ramping up over the decades, entertainment was slower at that time. There were cartoons (only after school and on Saturday mornings though) and slower paced video games. Then came the internet and with that, online gaming.

Eventually we landed on social media. The amount of content you can see within a few seconds is outrageous. Your brain gets that constant novelty and instant gratification it craves.

I never had horrible grades, thanks to my parents not allowing video games on weekdays. That habit that stuck through high school as well because of the time demands of football and weightlifting. In college, this changed thanks to Halo 2 and World of Warcraft.

Fast forward to previous years with my electric guitar channel and I struggled with producing music because of DotA 2 in my life. There were plenty of nights and weekends where my brain just wanted to play that instead of work on any music.

Fast forward again to classical guitar, and the only entertainment I could have would be DotA 2, other games or streaming services.

I work on music at night instead though.

How?

Carrot on a Stick

With my other channel, once I learned about habit building, I started to reward my musical work with a game or two of DotA.

This was a great idea since it gave a huge reward, but I ended up playing more games than I should have and would stay up late. My mind was also wired. Good luck relaxing for bed after a heated loss.

I needed a way to ensure that my brain always wanted to work on the things that deep down I wanted to work on, reward or not. Isn't that what we want? What if there was a way to always be "motivated" to do all the things you should be doing anyway?

Turns out, the answer is simple, but not easy.

You just have to remove the distractions.

A Kid from Austria

I played World of Warcraft multiple times through my lifetime. I had moments where I'd remove it (due to money) and lo and behold I had more motivation and brain points to be invested into the music I was working on.

You see other people crushing it in life, doing things that seem like hard work for everyone else but they seem to be enjoying it. Why? Is it possible to learn this power?

I'm a big lifter person. I finally got around to reading a couple books by Arnold Schwarzenegger. One thing he talks about constantly is working hard, having a vision, and things like that. It's obvious he's had huge success in life.

You want to know what he had going for him as a young kid?

Nothing.

He was in a small town in Austria and his default life path meant he was going to be joining the military or be a police officer and never leaving. However he caught a few glimpses of Reg Park (another bodybuilder turned actor) and from that moment he was inspired to take action.

There was nothing special about what Arnold did aside from putting in a ton of work into what he wanted to do. More steps = more results. But I honestly believe that he did all of that because when you start with no other distractions and the only alternatives are making it in America or nothing, you get to work. There was no internet to scroll, no TV to watch, none of that. Just the work.

I'm sure you've felt this flow state too. Even video games are something that require "work". Your brain is being challenged but you're enjoying it. Can we apply this to real life?

Let me give you a lab experiment. They hooked up rats to these electrodes that activated dopamine when the rat pressed a button. Dopamine makes you feel good. It was more dopamine than what they'd normally get. They were so hooked that even when they had an electric floor between them and the button, they walked across the floor to get to it.

I don't know if it was the same study, but when the button was closer to the rats, they'd just press the button and they didn't want to do anything else. They wouldn't even want to eat if food was near.

Today, the buttons for dopamine are all around us. Video games, phones, streaming, sweet and tasty food, you name it. Once your brain gets the easy win, it's not going to want to work hard for the stuff that actually takes time.

Most meaningful things in life come at the other end of hard work. What if you played a game on cheat codes and could win in 30 minutes instead of 15 hours? You won the game, but do you feel good about it? Probably not.

It's time to make your own game.

Dopamine Detox for Musicians (and everyone else too)

Motivation means "I really want to do something." When you "can't get motivated to work on music or go to the gym" I guarantee you're sitting around doing something that gives you more hits of excitement. Even if that means scrolling on your phone all day. Entertainment takes it up a level.

If I sat you out in a cottage with nothing but your music stuff and no internet, you'd get so bored that making music would feel fun again. It's better than staring at a wall.

Here are the steps to increase your "motivation."

• Figure out what you want.

  • There's obviously something in life you want to do. Write this down. Also what does your ideal day with this thing look like? Don't just think of one singular end result. If you were the musician you wanted to be, wouldn't you still be working on music?

• Figure out the goals/milestones

  • If you're a certain type of musician, you're creating a certain type of music. What songs and/or albums do you want to make? How many followers do you want?

• Figure out the few levers

  • Based on your goals, you need to be doing things to get there. What are the important things that move the needle?

  • For most musicians, it's "production" which are the steps that lead you to actually producing something. It's not upgrading equipment or changing your banner or making a social post. Without the music there is nothing. If you've produced today then you can work on other things later.

  • You can try to make schedules or release deadlines and that's great. If you're strapped for time, then make sure you're showing up. You may not be able to guarantee a release date, but you're showing up daily. (Just don't put it off for years).

• Cut the noise (HAHAHA A MUSICAL PUN HAHAHA)

  • I'm not going to tell you what to quit or if you should quit something completely. There are ways and "levels" to manipulate your dopamine fun so that it works in your favor. It really comes down to how frequently you indulge in it.

    • Level 1: Work Reward

      • After you spend 10-30 minutes working on music, then you can have your fun for as much as you want.

  • Level 2: Reduce the time

    • I hope you're not working on music for 30 minutes in the morning then spending 8 hours in the day playing video games. Let's reduce the total amount of entertainment down to 2 hours. As you go along you can start cutting back more time. 1 hour, 30 minutes, something like that.

  • Level 3: Weekends only

    • We still haven't quit entertainment outright. This gives you plenty of time during the week to get work in, knowing that you will have a weekend reprieve.

    • Later you can even just have one night of entertainment. Hello game/movie night!

  • Level 4: Once per month or quarter

    • This is getting harder, but you release your brain to really dig into what you're working on. Then for 3-5 days at the end of the month you get to go on an all out binge to really enjoy your fun.

  • Level 5: Not at all lol

    • Let me reassure you that you will not die without entertainment. Your ancestors didn't have as much as you do. They were probably writing books, making music and inventing stuff.

    • If you take this path, eventually your baseline dopamine will enjoy hard work again. Congrats, you're a productive human again!

Objections? Be honest with yourself.

I repeat: you don't need entertainment to survive. There could be some objections.

• "I play video games and still make music lol." Then keep going. However, what if you didn't have the entertainment at all? I'd wager that since you'd have more dopamine to invest into your craft, you'd be making more. Up to you.

• "But I need to have fun!" Be honest with yourself. If you're the kind of person that struggles to "get motivated" to work on music, something has to give. Deep down it's eating you up, so then you entertain yourself more to distract yourself from the pain. Face the music. (HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH ok that was lame).

• "This person plays video games and they're still productive!" Ok, are you that person? Again, see objection 1. Two people on the same path and same schedule but the only difference is that one doesn't play video games (or whatever), the non-gamer will be more productive. They just have less things to distract them. They have more time to daydream about how to create more instead of also daydreaming about their orc shaman. It's a numbers game.

Go forth and produce

These are the only steps you need to be productive:

• Write down what you want

• Write down the steps to get there

• Remove the distractions

This may seem harsh and "extreme," but I'm on your side. I was that guy with big hopes but just couldn't get myself to do the daily tasks. What's funny is that the tasks themselves aren't particularly difficult in the grand scheme of things. We're only talking about making music, which is what you're more than likely already good at. It's just that there's more "fun" activities that your brain will want to do.

I want more people to unplug (get it?) and get to the things they really want to do.

In a world of distractions, focus is a superpower.

Thanks for reading! Be sure to check out my music here.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to reach out.